Maryland Captivity - Beautiful Swimmers

They say love conquers all, you can’t start it like a car, you can’t stop it with a gun

Several nights ago, I was feeling romantic. Perhaps it was the incipient harbingers of spring floating through the house (other people call them allergens). Or maybe I just hadn’t heard my dad say anything too terrible recently, and I subconsciously wanted to remedy that. Anyways, as usual, dinner was a tortuous affair, a series of painful silences broken by occasional discussions of depression and attempted explanations for why my sister can’t seem to read well. I decided to inject a little bit of love and tenderness, finally asking the question I had wondered about intermittently since I was a small boy. Here is the secret tape recording of our conversation, which captured truly the most romantic answer to a question every young man asks his father:

Silence permeates the room. Patricia is seated across from my father, Jaina sits facing me. No one makes eye contact, instead focusing entirely on rearranging their servings of corned beef into even less appetizing piles of pinkish fat and congealed juices.

Me: Dad, can I ask you a question?

Dad:

Me: Thanks. When did you know that my mom was the person that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with?

The rest of the table, composed entirely of people my father has collected around him after he decided, in fact, that my mother was not the person that he wanted to spend ANY more time with, looks up and regards my father intently. My father pauses as he considers the question, stalling for time by swilling wine out of his coffee mug.

Dad: Well, it wasn’t really a feeling, an intuitive feeling. It was a decision that I made after we went ahead and cancelled our appointment at the abortion clinic. You know, after she got pregnant with you.

The rest of the family looks back down at their corned beef, which suddenly begins to bear a disturbing resemblance to dead baby-flesh. I interject, appalled and completely non-plussed.

Me: Please stop. Thats enough. Please stop.

Dad: Austen, don’t talk to me like that. If you keep talking like that, you can walk right out the front door, keep on walking and never come back.

In sum, I was told that I was nearly aborted over dinner. This came in response to a question about true love. When I expressed my disgust at this, I was threatened with getting kicked out of the house. I can’t believe that I haven’t turned into Charles Manson, given the situations that surround me…